Inverse Tweet?

Twitter is definitely a very unique social media tool. In the course of the campaign, we learn about retweets, modified tweets and hashtags. Recently, I saw a very different use of twitter. I would call it “ Inverse Tweet” or IT. People are known to retweet the messages that they like and share them with their followers. But some people have resorted to doing the opposite too. They retweet abusive, shocking and weird tweets directed at them. The purpose of this exercise is to expose the shallowness of their opponents.

One master of this exercise is Nusrat Javed (@javeednusrat) who is well over sixty years. He’s a well known liberal journalist turned TV anchor, and co-hosts a very popular live talk show, “Bolta Pakistan” or “Speaking Pakistan”. He’s thus regularly barraged by a conservative outlash on the social media. His only response to all these tweets, which are highly abusive or very cynical, is to retweet them. For example, he retweets the message which means “Nusrat is mad”

@RizwanNausher @javeednusrat nusrat pagal ho gaya hai
Retweeted by Nusrat Javeed


He gives his followers a chance to study the mentality of his opponents without saying anything himself. He’s in fact exposing their hypocrisy through their own tweets.  

This phenomena could be extended to anyone, belonging to any group, whose views are open and against the accepted norms of the society. I see this phenomenon gaining strength in the developing world. Better still, it could be a new social media trend. Nonetheless, it brings home the point the twitter has opened a whole world of new opportunities, insights and updates which were previously never thought of.